{
  "title": "Wildfire Risk in San Francisco County, CA 2026 | Satelife",
  "description": "Across the places we scored in San Francisco County, overall wildfire risk runs from 5.0 to 60.4, with a middle value of 13.4. The lowest scored places are in unincorporated San Francisco County, and the highest scored place is in San Francisco.",
  "image": "https://satelife.ai/images/wildfire-risk/san-francisco-county/generated/san-francisco-county-locator.webp",
  "canonical": "https://satelife.ai/wildfire-risk/california/san-francisco-county/",
  "content": "[Home](/)›[Wildfire Risk](/wildfire-risk/)›[California](/wildfire-risk/california/)›San Francisco County\n\nSan Francisco County, California\n\n# Wildfire risk in San Francisco County: _where it is highest_, and why\n\nAcross the places we scored in San Francisco County, overall wildfire risk runs from 5.0 to 60.4, with a middle value of 13.4. The lowest scored places are in unincorporated San Francisco County, and the highest scored place is in San Francisco.\n\n[Score my San Francisco County address →](#score-my-address) [How risky is this county? ↓](#risk-at-a-glance)\n\nBefore 20002000s2010s2020sCommunity\n\nSan Francisco County — the largest fires on record, at their perimeter centres, with the county’s main communities. Select a marker for its detail.\n\nAt a glance\n\n## Half of San Francisco County scores _Low_ or worse\n\nWe scored 116 points across San Francisco County on the same 0–100 scale a Satelife address report uses, and they do not land in one place. 2% of them come out High, while 74% are Low. Which end your own parcel sits at is not something a county map can tell you.\n\n24%\n\n74%\n\n**High** 2% · 2 of 116 points **Moderate** 24% · 28 of 116 points **Low** 74% · 86 of 116 points\n\nSafest end we measured 5 near unincorporated San Francisco County · Low\n\nMiddle of the county 13.4 Low — half of San Francisco County is above this\n\nMost exposed end we measured 60.4 near San Francisco · High\n\n### And the federal models agree it is a fire county\n\nVery Low FEMA National Risk Index — wildfire risk rating · index score 28.7 / 100\n\n$13k / yr FEMA NRI — expected annual loss from wildfire · rated Very Low\n\n8.70% USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities — mean annual burn probability · 90th-percentile cell 0.97%\n\n4.91 ft USFS WRC — mean conditional flame length · 26% of the county carries burnable fuel\n\nFEMA NRI also rates San Francisco County: all-hazards risk Very High · social vulnerability Relatively Moderate · community resilience Very High · annualised wildfire frequency 0.0000.\n\nSources: FEMA National Risk Index 1.20.0 (Dec 2025), county record · USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities v2.0, mean of the grid cells inside the county. Both describe the county as a whole, never an address in it.\n\nWhat does your San Francisco County address score?\n\nA county range shows the spread. Your parcel sits somewhere inside it — the report says where, and what to do about it.\n\nFree to request · PDF report with a 0–100 score, the drivers behind it, and a mitigation plan\n\nLocal context\n\n## What the data says about _San Francisco County_\n\nMost scored points fall in the Low tier (86 points), followed by Moderate (28 points). Only 2 points are in High, and none are in Very High.\n\nFor county-wide context, FEMA’s National Risk Index rates San Francisco County’s wildfire risk as “Very Low.”\n\nFire record\n\n## Where the fires _actually were_\n\nSince 1984, 2 fire perimeters are recorded in the county, with 2 acres burned in total. That equals 0.0% of county area burned since 1984.\n\nIn this record, the largest fire is listed as Elcamino (1988), and the most recent large fire is Lincoln (1996). Both are listed at 1 acre.\n\nAn older fire, Kirby Beach (1968), is listed at 115 acres and is marked as partly in the county.\n\n2 mapped fire perimeters centred in the county since 1984\n\n2 acres inside those perimeters since 1984\n\n0.0% of the county's area, as a share of 597 km²\n\nLincoln 1996 most recent large fire on record\n\nBefore 20002000s2010s2020s \n\nFire perimeters coloured by decade. Select a perimeter for its name, year and size.\n\nNamed fires on record\n\n-   **Kirby Beach Fire**1968115 acres in totalcrossed into the county\n-   **Prk Police Fire**19785 acres\n-   **Lincoln Fire**19961 acres\n-   **Elcamino Fire**19881 acres\n\nPerimeter sources: NIFC Interagency Fire Perimeter History · largest on record: Elcamino 1988. Perimeters are simplified for display; acreage is the figure the source records.\n\nCommunities\n\n## Where in the county you are _matters most_\n\nThe only community listed here is San Francisco, with a population of 873,965. Its middle overall wildfire risk score is 18.9.\n\nFEMA’s National Risk Index rates San Francisco County’s wildfire expected annual loss from wildfire as “Very Low.” In the same index, the county’s all-hazards risk rating is “Very High.”\n\nFEMA also rates the county’s social vulnerability as “Relatively Moderate” and community resilience as “Very High.”\n\nSan Francisco city · 873,965 people\n\n18.9 _Low_\n\nThe score is the median of the sampled points nearest that community — a community-scale indicator, not a score for any individual property in it. Population comes from the community's own record where the source carries one.\n\nTerrain & fuels\n\n## Terrain, vegetation and _fuels_\n\nTerrain scores are low in many places, with a middle value of 5.0, but they reach 40.0 at the high end in San Francisco. The minimum terrain score is 5.0 in unincorporated San Francisco County.\n\nVegetation and fuels also have a low middle value of 5.0, with a higher end of 56.9 in San Francisco. The minimum is 5.0 in unincorporated San Francisco County.\n\nThese two factors contribute to local differences in wildfire risk from one part of the county to another.\n\n5 median terrain score (max 40 near San Francisco)\n\n5 median vegetation & fuels score (max 56.9 near San Francisco)\n\nFire weather\n\n## Fire weather across _San Francisco County_\n\nFire weather could not be measured across the county. It was measured at only 4 of the 116 scored points, near San Francisco, where the score is 67.5.\n\nBecause that measurement is limited to a handful of points, countywide patterns here rely more on the factors that were scored broadly, including terrain, vegetation and fuels, hazard zones, and fire history.\n\nFire weather was measured at 4 of the 116 sampled points (near San Francisco, 67.5) — too few to publish as a county range, so no high/low is shown here.\n\nWhat drives it\n\n## Which part of the risk _moves_, and which doesn't\n\nWildfire risk is not uniform inside the county. The highest overall scored place is San Francisco at 60.4, while the minimum is 5.0 in unincorporated San Francisco County.\n\nThe city of San Francisco has a middle overall score of 18.9, compared with the countywide middle value of 13.4 across scored places.\n\nHazard-zone scores span from 10.0 to 82.6, and both the minimum and maximum occur in unincorporated San Francisco County. That means those unincorporated areas include both lower and higher hazard-zone locations.\n\nEach bar is what one part of the score covers across San Francisco County, on the same 0–100 scale. A long bar is a part of the risk that depends on where you are; a short one is the same almost everywhere.\n\nTerrain\n\n5–40 highest near San Francisco\n\nVegetation & fuels\n\n5–56.9 highest near San Francisco\n\nHazard zone\n\n10–82.6 highest near unincorporated San Francisco County\n\nFire history\n\n5–95 highest near San Francisco\n\nFire weather\n\n67.5 at one point highest near San Francisco\n\nOverall score\n\n5–60.4 highest near San Francisco\n\nThe tick on each bar is the middle value. Tier boundaries — Moderate at 25, High at 50, Very High at 75 — are the faint lines behind them.\n\nShow every number behind these bars\n\nLayer\n\nMin\n\nMedian\n\nMax\n\nLowest place\n\nHighest place\n\nPoints\n\nTerrain\n\n5\n\n5\n\n40\n\nunincorporated San Francisco County\n\nSan Francisco\n\n116\n\nVegetation & fuels\n\n5\n\n5\n\n56.9\n\nunincorporated San Francisco County\n\nSan Francisco\n\n116\n\nHazard zone\n\n10\n\n10\n\n82.6\n\nunincorporated San Francisco County\n\nunincorporated San Francisco County\n\n116\n\nFire history\n\n5\n\n5\n\n95\n\nunincorporated San Francisco County\n\nSan Francisco\n\n116\n\nFire weather\\*\n\n—\n\n—\n\n67.5\n\n—\n\nnear San Francisco\n\n4\n\nComposite\n\n5\n\n13.4\n\n60.4\n\nunincorporated San Francisco County\n\nSan Francisco\n\n116\n\n\\*Fire weather returned a reading at only 4 of the 116 sampled points. The one value measured is shown under Max with the place beside it; there is no county range to report, so the other columns are left blank.\n\nIndependently of Satelife's layers, the USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities grid puts the county's mean annual burn probability at **8.70%** (90th percentile cell: **0.97%**), with a mean conditional flame length of **4.91 ft**. **26%** of the 9,501 grid cells inside the county carry burnable fuel at all.\n\nSource: USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities v2.0 (ImageServer, county extent).\n\nCAL FIRE has no mapped Fire Hazard Severity Zone at **64** of the 116 sampled points — the zones cover Local Responsibility Areas, and most of this county is state or federal land. At **16** of them the USFS grid above supplied the hazard reading instead; at the remaining 48 the hazard weight is renormalised away rather than scored as low.\n\n116 sample points on a ~2.3 km grid, plus one at the centre of each community, weighted with the Satelife county profile v1 · median layer coverage 90%. Scores are 0–100 and comparable within the county, not across states.\n\nFor a property\n\n## What a county range means for _one address_\n\nTwo mapped factors show high local peaks in the county: fire-history scores reach 95.0 in San Francisco, and hazard-zone scores reach 82.6 in unincorporated San Francisco County. At the low end, fire history is 5.0 and hazard zone is 10.0.\n\nA separate U.S. Forest Service product estimates mean annual burn probability at 8.70% for the county, and it indicates 26.3% of the county can burn. It also reports mean conditional flame length of 4.91 feet.\n\nFor an individual home, that means nearby conditions can differ a lot even within the same county, so the address-level maps and tables matter.\n\nAcross 116 sampled points in San Francisco County, the score runs from 5 to 60.4 — two neighbouring parcels can sit in different tiers. A county number is the middle of that spread; it says nothing about which end yours is at.\n\nFind out where your San Francisco County parcel sits\n\nSlope, the fuel touching the structure, the road out, the fire history within a mile — measured at your address, not averaged across the county.\n\nFree to request · PDF report with a 0–100 score, the drivers behind it, and a mitigation plan\n\nCoverage\n\n## ZIP codes we cover in San Francisco County\n\nEvery one of the 35 ZIP areas that touch San Francisco County — we run address-level reports in all of them. They are grouped by the median score of the points we sampled inside each, which is a neighbourhood-scale indicator and **not** a score for any property: two homes in the same ZIP routinely land in different tiers.\n\n**High** 1 ZIP\n\n-   [94129 San Francisco57](/wildfire-risk/zip/94129/)\n\n**Moderate** 7 ZIPs\n\n-   [94122 San Francisco37](/wildfire-risk/zip/94122/)\n-   [94121 San Francisco36](/wildfire-risk/zip/94121/)\n-   [94131 San Francisco34](/wildfire-risk/zip/94131/)\n-   [94102 San Francisco33](/wildfire-risk/zip/94102/)\n-   [94118 San Francisco33](/wildfire-risk/zip/94118/)\n-   [94123 San Francisco33](/wildfire-risk/zip/94123/)\n-   [94132 San Francisco28](/wildfire-risk/zip/94132/)\n\n**Low** 7 ZIPs\n\n-   [94134 San Francisco25](/wildfire-risk/zip/94134/)\n-   [94114 San Francisco21](/wildfire-risk/zip/94114/)\n-   [94112 San Francisco17](/wildfire-risk/zip/94112/)\n-   [94124 San Francisco17](/wildfire-risk/zip/94124/)\n-   [94103 San Francisco17](/wildfire-risk/zip/94103/)\n-   [94127 San Francisco17](/wildfire-risk/zip/94127/)\n-   [94107 San Francisco13](/wildfire-risk/zip/94107/)\n\n**No sampled point inside** 20 ZIPs\n\n[94005 San Francisco](/wildfire-risk/zip/94005/) · [94014 San Francisco](/wildfire-risk/zip/94014/) · [94104 San Francisco](/wildfire-risk/zip/94104/) · [94105 San Francisco](/wildfire-risk/zip/94105/) · [94108 San Francisco](/wildfire-risk/zip/94108/) · [94109 San Francisco](/wildfire-risk/zip/94109/) · [94110 San Francisco](/wildfire-risk/zip/94110/) · [94111 San Francisco](/wildfire-risk/zip/94111/) · [94115 San Francisco](/wildfire-risk/zip/94115/) · [94116 San Francisco](/wildfire-risk/zip/94116/) · [94117 San Francisco](/wildfire-risk/zip/94117/) · [94130 San Francisco](/wildfire-risk/zip/94130/) · [94133 San Francisco](/wildfire-risk/zip/94133/) · [94158 San Francisco](/wildfire-risk/zip/94158/) · [94188 San Francisco](/wildfire-risk/zip/94188/) · [94501 San Francisco](/wildfire-risk/zip/94501/) · [94607 San Francisco](/wildfire-risk/zip/94607/) · [94801 San Francisco](/wildfire-risk/zip/94801/) · [94920 San Francisco](/wildfire-risk/zip/94920/) · [94965 San Francisco](/wildfire-risk/zip/94965/)\n\nGrouped from 15 of 35 ZIP areas — the rest had no sample point fall inside them. The community shown is the nearest mapped place to the ZIP's centre.\n\nZIP areas are Census 2020 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas intersecting the county boundary.\n\nWhere to go next\n\n## San Francisco County wildfire risk _in context_\n\n[California wildfire risk The statewide picture and every county page we publish](/wildfire-risk/california/) [Wildfire risk by state Every state and county we cover](/wildfire-risk/) [How Satelife calculates wildfire risk Data sources, layers, score composition, honest limits](/wildfire-risk/methodology/) [Create a wildfire evacuation plan Zones, egress routes, refuge areas](/wildfire-evacuation-plan/) [Run a report for a San Francisco County address PDF + score + mitigation plan](/#cta)\n\nFAQ\n\n## Frequently asked questions about _San Francisco County wildfire risk_\n\nHas much of San Francisco County burned since 1984?\n\nNo. The record here shows 2 acres burned since 1984, across 2 fire perimeters, which is 0.0% of the county area.\n\nWhich places score highest and lowest for overall wildfire risk?\n\nThe highest scored place is San Francisco at 60.4. The lowest score is 5.0 in unincorporated San Francisco County.\n\nIs fire weather included countywide?\n\nNo. Fire weather was measured at only a handful of points, not across the county: 4 of 116 points, near San Francisco, with a score of 67.5 at that measured location.\n\nWhat are FEMA’s county-wide wildfire ratings here?\n\nFEMA’s National Risk Index rates San Francisco County’s wildfire risk as “Very Low” and its wildfire expected annual loss as “Very Low.” These are county-level ratings.\n\nWhat does the U.S. Forest Service burn probability figure say?\n\nIt reports a mean annual burn probability of 8.70% for the county, and says 26.3% of the county can burn.\n\nThis page is generated from a San Francisco County data pack assembled on 2026-08-19 (pack v1.0). Scores are sampled across the county, not measured at any individual address, and are informational decision support — not a substitute for official evacuation orders, a fire-agency hazard determination, or an insurer's underwriting judgement. Data versions: fema\\_nri 1.20.0 (Dec 2025) · landfire per adapter · nifc\\_history All Years View · wfigs current · wrc v2.0 (2024) · zcta Census 2020.\n\n## What does _your parcel_ look like, layer by layer?\n\nA county range shows the spread. An address-level Satelife report shows where in that spread your property actually sits — PDF, per-layer score, and a prioritized mitigation plan.\n\n[Start with your address →](/#cta)\n\n[![PRR](/images/prr.png)](/ficha-de-website-voucher-satelife.pdf)\n\n© 2024–2026 Satelife, Lda. All rights reserved.\n\nSatelife reports are for informational purposes only and do not constitute insurance, financial, or legal advice."
}